Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Leader will know that over the last few years I have spoken quite a lot on the search and rescue contract that is now passing from CHC to Bristow. Today, I want to draw to the attention of the Leader, and perhaps she will draw it to the attention of the Minister, a crash that took place in February of this year in Norway. I refer to the Norwegian national oil and gas operator. The company that won the contract was going through what our search and rescue service is going through now, which is a transition from one operator to another operator. In the case of what happened in Norway, the aircraft remained constant. A new company was taking over, they were using the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter and the period of time required to move from one operator to the other is the issue at hand. A report on the crash has just been issued and it shows that the transition time for the change of contract operator was too short.

As to why I bring this matter to the attention of the Leader and ask her to bring it to the attention of the Minister for Transport, Bristow has won the contract. Anyone in the Oireachtas is getting regular updates from Bristow. I wish Bristow well in the future but I never wanted it nor anybody else to get the contract because I believe that the State should do it itself but that is a different argument. I am concerned about the fact that we lost the crew of an S-92 called R116 off the coast of Belmullet and there have been several reports condemning the way things were done. Now we are in a situation where a new contractor is in place and we have too tight a timeline. The new contractor will not use S-92 aircraft but AgustaWestland AW189 aircraft. The timeframe to bring the crews up to speed is far too tight and I believe that we are now going to put the new crews in the new SAR service in serious peril by not giving enough time for the transition to move, not just from one employer to the other but to change from one type of helicopter to a different type of helicopter. I have put that on the record today and I will come back to this matter later when I have more information but I am really concerned. I would also like Bristow to make a statement as to how prepared it believes it will be in time for this contract.